New era for young Queensland sailor

Klaus Lorenz the exceptionally talented Whitsunday Sailing Club teenage skipper has entered a promising new era in his already impressive career.

After representing Queensland and Australia in the popular Sabot and Optimist classes he has now set his target towards gaining the same honours in the international 420 class.

Klaus has teamed up with local Whitsunday teenager Ollie Annear and while they are still yet to understand which ‘string’ to twitch for the ultimate speed sailing performance still managed to record a close win in the annual Whitsunday Sailing Club summer series.

Finding the feel in a new class normally takes some time but Klaus Lorenz is no ordinary teenager when he is presented with a challenge.

With basically no serious coaching or the important big fleet racing experience Klaus progressively expressed his individual talent to win the Bronze medal in the Australian Optimist championship hosted by the Royal Prince Alfred Yacht Club earlier this year.

His success driven by a personal attitude to spend more time in training with his younger sister Eva on the often windy Pioneer Bay has provided both sailors with the results of being ranked as Queensland’s best male and female Optimist dinghy sailors.

Now Eva will continue with her Optimist class racing while Klaus and Ollie Annear continue to refine their crew skills with mixed class racing in the Whitsunday Sailing Club events on Pioneer Bay.

Selecting to race in the 420 class which is competitively strong throughout Australia offers the young Whitsunday crew the opportunity to test their skills in one-design class racing with the goal to represent Australia in the Volvo World Youth championship.

Meanwhile their sailing will involve a back to the basics learning curve on adjusting their sail trimming skills from sailing in a single sail class to effectively handle a Jib, mainsail and spinnaker.

Winning their first series on Pioneer Bay was an impressive start however their real moment of truth to where they stand in the class will be proved when the promising young crew line up against the strong Australian fleet for the open national title in 2012.

Both Klaus and Eva are nominated to contest the 2011 Queensland championship as part of the Maroochy Sailing Club Sail Mooloolaba regatta in June.

This will be the final Optimist class championship for Klaus before he takes the important step into racing his 420 class dinghy against the Queensland and Australian open champions Alex Galloway and Andrew Gough.

The talented Royal Queensland Yacht Squadron crew who finished fifth at the 2010 ISAF Volvo World Youth championship in Turkey have provided the boat speed benchmark which will prove to be a guide for Klaus Lorenz and Ollie Annear when they test their talent in the 420 National Sail Brisbane regatta later this year.

If you want to link to this article then please use this URL: www.sail-world.com/83524